Melanzane Involtini

For Iftar yesterday, I cooked Melanzane Involtini and my all time wok chicken wings as starters.

The recipe for the Melanzane Involtini is here for anyone interested:

Ingredients

4 large bio eggs, 3 large melanzane, plain flour (enough for dusting the melanzane pieces), some oil for shallow frying of the melanzane pieces, ricotta cheese 250g, some grated parmesan cheese, some mozzarella cheese cut into thin square pieces, about ½ cup of pine nuts, 4 fresh tomatoes, 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, some chopped parsley and a piece of a day old bread. Salt and pepper to taste, and some extra virgin oil for sprinkling.

Method:

Peel the melanzane and cut lengthways into thin slices, please do not cut too thick as it will be difficult to roll later. Lightly coat the melanzane pieces in the flour. Beat 3 pieces of eggs for dipping the coated melanzane. In a flat frying pan, heat up some oil, dip the melanzane pieces in the egg and shallow fry them in batches. Make sure to fry both sides until golden and drain on kitchen paper towel.
Mix the 250g ricotta cheese with 1 egg, and 3 teaspoons of the grated parmesan cheese, season with salt and pepper.

Spoon 2 teaspoon of the ricotta mix onto the melanzane pieces; put a stick of the sliced mozzarella cheese, then roll the melanzane tightly.

Finally put parsley, pine nuts and bread into a processor. Process until roughly chopped. Preheat the oven to 170°C.

For the tomato sauce, finely chop 2 large sweet onions, chop all the tomatoes. Heat a pan, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sauté the onion till fragrant, add the chopped tomatoes and the tomato paste, add a bit of water if the sauce is too thick, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Brush the base of a large ovenproof dish with some extra virgin olive oil, and then pour half of the tomato sauce in the dish. Place the rolled melanzane pieces on the tomato sauce in the dish. Drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil and add the other half of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with some parmesan cheese and followed by the parsley mix as topping.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes.